The much-criticised head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Dr Rajenda Pachauri, gave a vigorous defence of his position last night, accepting there had been mistakes in the IPCC’s work, taking responsibility for some of them, but robustly refusing to stand down.

He would see out his term and preside over the next IPCC assessment report, due in 2013, he said.

Dr Pachauri agreed that the actions of the IPCC in recent months, when some of its forecasts had been shown to be wrong and it had not responded quickly enough to criticism, had contributed to the public loss of belief in predictions of global warming and in human responsibility for climate change.

Pachauri also accused critics who have used an error in the 2007 IPCC report to question the scientific basis of climate change of “an act of astonishing intellectual legerdemain [sleight of hand]“. Scientific knowledge of climate change, he says, is “something we distort and trivialise at our peril”.

James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech (pdf) to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the “perfect storm” of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable

To establish a legal process in the UK and abroad to facilitate the criminal prosecution of Government Ministers and key business leaders whose policies and activities contribute to the mass loss of life which Climate Change is certain to now cause.

Current work in two areas

1. Bangladesh

Working with Bangladeshi political and environmental groups to seek the introduction of legislation to prosecute foreign nationals who have contributed to the Climate Change process that will result in the mass murder of Bangladeshi nationals.

As the one nation expected to suffer the most this century (over 90 million people to be displaced by rising sea levels and more extreme weather events) with millions of people murdered by the key Climate Criminals, we are working to ensure the nation is the first to bring the main culprits to justice.

2. UK Environmental Campaigns

Working to ensure UK environmental campaign groups re-focus campaigning, uniting to call for the criminal prosecution and imprisonment of the worst offenders.

Penalties: Upon prosecution and conviction

The penalties must be proportionate, reflecting the unprecedented scale of death and human misery the Climate Criminals will cause. The evidence from the world’s leading scientific bodies is now conclusive – we know that if the Climate Criminals do not stop their activities they will be responsible for the murder of at least 500 million people this century. But, there is a high probability that the deaths will exceed 1 billion people by 2100 with world population collapsing by the year 2200.